A short walk in the Adelaide Hills
An anthill makes a statement in the Mark Oliphant Conservation Park.
The next stop on our Canberra to Perth adventure was Adelaide, South Australia.
This is Poor John’s hometown and a place we both enjoy. There’s the added bonus that his brother and sister-in-law, David and Charlotte, still live there, which meant we could crawl out of our tent and sleep in a real bed. 🙂
We were also invited to join them on their monthly bush walk with a group of their friends.
What a great idea! Members of the group take turns choosing, planning and leading a walk. Every walk is different—it might be a tour of Adelaide artworks, a weekend-long tramp in Kangaroo Island or anything in between. I think repeats can come around every few years.
The walk we joined was organised by Bryce and Margaret, who set it in the 190-hectare Mark Oliphant Conservation Park in the Adelaide Hills.
It was a great choice. I’d never walked in the Adelaide Hills before and enjoyed ambling through a forest landscape of primarily messmate and brown stringybark gum trees—don’t ask me to tell you which is which!
I especially loved snapping pics of a lot of plants unknown to me. I’ve read that severe bush fires that swept through the park in 1980 and 1995, but other than some blackened trucks, the flora seems to have recovered.
Our not-too-strenuous walk lasted a couple of hours and included a mix of up and downhill stretches. The walk wrapped up with a picnic lunch near the carpark.
Thanks Margaret and Bryce for organising such a great outing. And thanks also for helping to identify many of the plants, the tips regarding camping on the road to Perth and the delicious date slice recipe. Yummo!
Here’s the recipe:
250 g butter
250 g chopped dates
1/2 cup sugar
5 dried apricots, chopped and soaked in a tiny bit of hot water
1 packet Marie biscuits or other neutral biscuit (about 200 g)
small amount of coconut—to sprinkle—or not
1 egg
vanilla (up to 1 tsp)
Mix dates, butter, sugar and apricots in saucepan and heat.
Beat egg and vanilla together and mix into date mix.
Roughly break up biscuits and mix in.
Grease a Swiss roll tin (and cover with coconut), put mixture into tin, sprinkle with coconut (or not) and flatten evenly with wet hands.
Refrigerate and cut into squares. Can store in deep freeze.
If you are interested in recipes and cooking, please check out my food blog.
Where to next? 
Lovely photos Peggy. Thank you. That bright pink flower is beautiful. I’m pleased to hear that you enjoyed your walk too.
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A very pleasant day.
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